Meet David Flora | Artistic Director

We had the good fortune of connecting with David Flora and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi David, what do you attribute your success to?
The most important factor behind our success is striving for excellence with limited resources. Creating a community that shares one common goal where everyone is putting their energy and creativity behind it helps us achieve this success. When people come to one of our events they know that it will be done to the highest level of quality that we are capable of producing. When we aren’t doing a serious drama, people know to associate our performances and events with being a fun and funny night out. We don’t think that people should only look to large cities for quality theatre; if there’s a willingness on our part to put in the work, folks can find quality theatre in their own backyard.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Firebird Theatre does high quality theatre in the Gunnison Valley. What sets us apart is that we don’t have a building to put our productions up in which makes us collaborate with a lot of local businesses. We are proud that we were able to put on a full Shakespeare production at the Crested Butte Depot. The Depot is an old train station in town, and we used the platform as a stage to perform “Twelfth Night” in front of 100 people every night. The production was free to the public with suggested donations for the tickets, because we think that theatre should be accessible to anyone who is interested in it. We will be performing a murder mystery dinner experience at the Almont Resort in Almont, CO, improv at Public House in Crested Butte, “A Christmas Carol” on Mt. Crested Butte, and are hoping to do staged readings and broadway song nights at other local establishments. It is hard to not have a permanent location to call your home, but it is exciting to join different establishments and communities and integrate yourself with them. We think it actually helps us create a strong foundation to build upon and makes us visible to more of the community faster. We are learning with every production that we put on how to improve the experience for the next time. For example, our next Shakespeare production will be one week earlier than the previous year’s because it was slightly cold the second weekend. Small technical issues which can cause stress the week of the production will now be handled sooner. For example, we now know that we need to order the port-a-potties well in advance. We think that even when something is successful, it does not mean that you can’t learn from that experience and make improvements. We hope that we might inspire other actors, directors, and writers to keep doing theatre. You don’t need to have your own stage to be able to put on your own high quality work.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
It depends on if you are visiting Crested Butte in the summer or the winter. If you are going in the summer, it is all about hiking, biking, rafting, fishing, and camping. If you are visiting in the winter, it is great to go downhill skiing or visit the nordic center for cross country skiing or snowshoe options. We would recommend The Almont Resort and Public House for dinner and drink options. Between outdoor activities and food we would recommend checking out all of the local art galleries, especially the Rijks Family Gallery. If you walk up and down Elk Avenue in Crested Butte you will see a lot of the food options available and it is worth trying out a new place each night. Dogwood is a fun drink option that is not on Elk Avenue. A lot of people think of the mountain just for skiing, but it does have some fun options for food and drink including The Coffee Lab, A Bar Above, and Tin Cup. Make sure to take it easy the first day that you are here and drink a lot of water because you are at 9,000 feet.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
The staff and volunteers behind Firebird Theatre. Great theatre is not accomplished by a single person, but by a group of passionate artists.

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